Enthusiasm for public sector pay awards tempered by concern over winter fuel payment cuts and job losses
“We’re hearing an awful lot about tough times: it’s like being in a Dickens novel. What comes after the tough times? We need to hear about hope.”
Onay Kasab, the national lead officer for the Unite trade union, was addressing a leftwing fringe meeting, but similar sentiments reverberated through the bars and coffee shops at this week’s TUC congress in Brighton.
Continue reading...Junk food ad ban, age limit on energy drinks and expanded water fluoridation among measures planned to help NHS
Plans to ban junk food ads and to stop children buying high-caffeine energy drinks are among radical public health measures being drawn up by ministers to prevent illness and so ease pressure on the NHS.
The government made clear it would face down “predictable cries of ‘nanny state’” because Keir Starmer was convinced this was the way to fix the service.
Continue reading...Spokesperson for Keir Starmer says focus was instead on encouraging pensioners to seek additional support
Ministers did not carry out a specific impact assessment on the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment from the bulk of pensioners, such as the potential effect on illness and death rates among older people, Downing Street has said.
After days of No 10 refusing to comment, Keir Starmer’s deputy spokesperson said the only assessment made before the policy announcement was a standard legal one of potential equalities impacts.
Continue reading...The government saw off a rebellion over its plans to cut winter fuel allowance this week. John Harris speaks to Caroline Abrahams from Age UK about what this winter will look like for millions of pensioners losing out. Plus, he talks to columnist Rafael Behr about whether the technocrats (Starmer and Reeves) are taking the Labour party in the wrong direction
Continue reading...British steel industry braced for 2,500 job cuts at the Port Talbot steelworks
Some of Keir Starmer’s critics complain that he overdoes the gloom and negativity when talking about the outlook facing the country. A speech he gave in Downing Street in August is remembered as the ‘things can only get worse’ speech, after he told his audience: “Frankly - things will get worse before we get better.”
But he may be revising the message a bit. Yesterday he held a briefing with Scottish lobby journalists in Downing Street, embargoed until today, and, according to the PA Media report, he told them his government offered a “big message of hope”, despite having had to make decisions which “appear gloomy and hard”.
There is massive hope in this, what we want to do, the change we want to bring about is massive.
It is to make sure the economy is not only growing but growing across the whole of the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, which will be measured in living standards rising, people feeling better off in a material way.
Continue reading...Housing minister says policy will not be watered down day after dozens of Labour MPs abstained in key vote
Plans to scale back winter fuel payments for pensioners will not be watered down, a UK government minister has said, after dozens of Labour MPs abstained on a key Commons vote on Tuesday night.
The housing and planning minister, Matthew Pennycook, was speaking the morning after MPs voted to remove the winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners in England and Wales.
Continue reading...While Commons rebellion was small-scale, behind the scenes, anger over handling of the policy is said to run high
In the end, the vote to cut the winter fuel allowance passed easily. Hundreds of loyalist Labour MPs tramped through the lobbies to back the government’s controversial plan. No 10 will hope the heat has gone out of the issue.
But despite dodging a major rebellion, plenty in government were not taking much comfort from the result. Scores of MPs abstained in silent protest, fearful that they could be condemning vulnerable pensioners to a cold, hard winter.
Continue reading...‘Spads’ working for new government say they are not being paid as fairly as predecessors under the Tories
Many of Labour’s newly recruited special advisers, known as “spads”, have joined a union over concerns about their pay.
Aides working in Downing Street or for cabinet ministers have said they are not being paid as fairly as their predecessors under the Tories.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves tells Labour MPs that axing allowance for all but poorest pensioners will help plug £22bn hole in finances
The chancellor has faced down would-be rebels in a private meeting of Labour MPs ahead of the crunch vote on the government’s controversial plan to scrap the winter fuel allowance.
Rachel Reeves told a gathering of the parliamentary Labour party that the move was necessary, despite fears about the impact on millions of less-well-off pensioners, as it would help to plug a £22bn gap in the public finances.
Continue reading...PM and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, defend move to restrict payment to only the poorest pensioners
Like the Telegraph (see 11.25am), the Times has also published a new article with a Tory endorsement for Kemi Badenoch, but this one is potentially more significant. Margaret Thatcher is no longer with us, but for Conservative party members she is still the one figure from the party’s recent past whose authority is more or less unquestioned and Peter Lilley has written an article claiming that Badenoch would be a worthy inheritor of her mantle. He says Thatcher was a scientist, and Badenoch is an engineering graduate. Like Thatcher, Badenoch is focused on facts, and what works, he says. He goes on:
Leadership candidates are under great pressure to make popular pledges, to abolish specific taxes or set a numerical limit on immigration. Kemi, rightly in my view, has refused to do so. Voters want lower taxes and much less immigration (as do I), but they have seen every glib promise broken. To convince them, a new leader will need to show first, that policies have been rigorously worked out in practical terms and second, that we truly believe in them rather than adopting them to win votes. As Margaret Thatcher said: “To carry conviction, you must have conviction.”
Conviction is the fruit of hard-nosed scepticism. Kemi’s approach is similar to Margaret Thatcher’s, for whom I once worked. When ministers took a policy to her which was in line with all her prejudices, expecting instant approval, she would tear into it, challenging every weakness. Only when satisfied that a policy was totally robust would she take it on board – but then she pursued it with unwavering conviction. Kemi is likewise willing to challenge, criticise and expose weaknesses, which does not endear her to everyone. But we cannot afford to go on adopting half-baked, unworkable policies.
We can rage at Labour’s actions, but the public won’t listen to our narrative – unless we have a leader who can communicate.
Kemi Badenoch is that person. She is blessed with that rare gift in politics: the X-factor that means she can not only communicate but achieve all important ‘cut-through’, so that the public actually notice.
Continue reading...Dozens said to be considering abstaining from Tuesday’s vote over pensioners’ payments, as PM says dealing with dissent is ‘matter for chief whip’
As many as 50 Labour MPs could refuse to back the government’s controversial plan to cut the winter fuel allowance, despite Keir Starmer urging back benchers to get behind a measure he has conceded is “unpopular”.
While few on the government benches are expected to vote against the policy in Tuesday’s vote, dozens are believed to be considering abstaining or being absent – though rebels say the numbers in their ranks are very hard to predict.
Continue reading...Sources fear meeting with Ursula von der Leyen postponed due to Labour’s doubts about reinstating EU student exchange schemes
Keir Starmer’s anticipated summit with the president of the European Commission has been postponed over what some see as the British government’s caution about reinstating programmes such as the youth mobility and Erasmus university exchange schemes.
The prime minister was expected to meet Ursula von der Leyen in the first or second week of September, but sources have said a meeting may now not happen until the end of October at the earliest.
Continue reading...Employees have lost out on holiday pay worth £2bn, according to new trade union research
Workers across Britain have lost out on holiday pay worth £2bn, with more than a million people going without a single day of paid time off, according to new research.
With unions gathering in Brighton this weekend for the first TUC conference under a Labour administration for 15 years, the body revealed new research showing the extent to which workers are being denied holiday pay. Workers are entitled to 28 days paid leave for a typical five-day week.
Continue reading...Britain’s pandemic response was among the worst and the NHS had been ‘seriously weakened’, says leading surgeon
• Three reports lay bare scale of NHS malaise, but will Reeves fund a remedy?
Britain was hit far harder by the Covid-19 pandemic than other developed countries because the NHS had been “seriously weakened” by disastrous government policies over the preceding decade, a wide-ranging report will conclude this week.
An assessment of the NHS by the world-renowned surgeon Prof Ara Darzi, commissioned in July by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, will find that the health service reduced its “routine healthcare activity by a far greater percentage than other health systems” in many key areas during the Covid crisis.
Continue reading...Campaigners call for apology after inquiry report makes several criticisms of decisions made during Blair’s tenure
Grenfell campaigners have called on Tony Blair to apologise and take responsibility for decisions made by his government that contributed to the fire that killed 72 people.
The former prime minister said on Thursday that tragedies such as the west London fire, which came after years of missed opportunities to regulate combustible cladding, were a result of unavoidable mistakes.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Lord chancellor says she wants to ‘inject energy’ into stalling efforts to set up Nuremberg-style trial
The new Labour government wants to inject renewed energy into the two-year-long international effort to set up a special tribunal with the authority to try Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression, the lord chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, has said.
Discussions have been dogged by disputes over the appropriate body to set up the special tribunal, and fears in the US that if an organisation were empowered to strip the Russian leadership of immunity from prosecution in a foreign court, western leaders might face the threat of legal action in the future.
Continue reading...The 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London was the result of ‘decades of failure’ by central government, the public inquiry into the catastrophe has found. The Guardian’s John Harris looks at the findings of the report with the social affairs leader writer Susanna Rustin. And, as Labour continues to warn ‘things will get worse before they get better’, we are joined by the economists James Meadway and Ann Pettifor to discuss whether a painful period of austerity-lite is the only way through the storm
Continue reading...Former home secretary finishes behind Mel Stride after only securing 14 votes
PMQs is starting soon. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Kemi Badenoch is the clear favourite of Conservative members for next leader, and will be very hard to beat if she makes it into the final ballot of two, according to a survey by ConservativeHome.
Continue reading...Plan to means-test benefit for pensioners criticised by opposition parties and some Labour backbenchers
Keir Starmer faces a test of his authority next week after promising a vote on the government’s plans to limit winter fuel allowance to the poorest pensioners.
MPs will get the chance to vote on secondary legislation on Tuesday that will introduce means-testing of the benefit after pressure from opposition parties and Labour backbenchers.
Continue reading...Shona Robison, Scottish finance secretary, says current financial situation facing Scottish government is ‘not sustainable’
Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, is launching his campaign for the Tory leadership. There is a live feed here.
Tugendhat started by saying that he did not actually want the job, because he does not want to be leader of the opposition. He wants to be prime minister, he said.
Politics is not a game, and we all know the cost when government isn’t sober and serious. We saw it in the lives lost in Afghanistan and then in that wasted chaos of that withdrawal. We saw it during Covid, not just in the lost years of education that cost so many or the opportunities missed, or even in the grief for lost loved ones or those left to cope alone, but through the disrespect.
That’s why I’m standing before you today, because this country can change. We must change, and Britain deserves better, and we need a different government.
Continue reading...